Haiti: Capitalist-Made Disaster

Socialist Viewpoint Editorial

The death, destruction and devastation suffered by the Haitian people cannot be blamed solely on the massive earthquake that struck January 12. For two centuries French then U.S. capitalism has plundered the wealth of Haiti—raping it, robbing it, occupying it and kidnapping it’s democratically elected leaders—ejecting them from their own country—and sending in an occupation force to maintain their right to continue their plunder. Most recently, the U.S.-installed UN occupation force has enforced this poverty on the Haitian people forcing them to live in unsafe structures piled on top of one-another; cook with open fires; mix mud with the little flour they have left to fill the distended bellies of their children. The occupation forces do nothing but keep the people from organizing to defend themselves and maintaining the status quo—that’s their job. The results of their occupation over the centuries have left Haiti the poorest nation in this hemisphere. The U.S.-imposed occupation has seen to it that there are no jobs, no decent housing, no independence, and no rights for the people of Haiti.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government under the Obama administration is spending trillions of dollars on never-ending wars and occupations and even more trillions on bailing out the corporations that profit from them and from the rape of Haiti.

We will be joining tens-of-thousands of people in the streets of Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, CA on March 20 demanding, Stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Bring all U.S. and NATO forces and private contractors home now! End U.S. aid to Israel now! Free Palestine now! End the foreign occupation of Haiti! Use the trillions spent on war and corporate bailouts to pay reparations to Haiti for the vast wealth that has been looted from the country. Use the trillions from war and criminal bailouts for jobs, housing, education, healthcare for all, not to maintain perpetual wars to protect the profits of the wealthiest one-tenth-of-one-percent at the top. The good of humanity as a whole supersedes the private accumulation of vast profits. This is a democratic and humanitarian right of working people and the poor across the globe.

It is this occupation that is responsible for these hundreds-of-thousands of deaths, injuries and losses that poverty exacerbates. But it is not only happening in Haiti. It is a disease spread around the world wherever capitalism has a foothold and an army to enforce it.

We endorse the statement by the ANSWER coalition posted below. And we encourage our readers to participate fully in the building of and participation in the March 20 march and rallies against the wars and occupations in Washington, DC; San Francisco; and Los Angeles, CA to demand OUT NOW.!

Stand With the People of Haiti!
What the U.S. Government Isn’t Telling You

By the ANSWER Coalition

We at the ANSWER Coalition extend our heartfelt solidarity to all of our Haitian sisters and brothers, as well as to all those who have friends and family there, as Haiti copes with the destruction and grief of the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck yesterday.

All of us are joining in the outpouring of solidarity from people all over the hemisphere and world who are sending humanitarian aid and assistance to the people of Haiti.

At such a moment, it is also important to put this catastrophe into a political and social context. Without this context, it is impossible to understand both the monumental problems facing Haiti and, most importantly, the solutions that can allow Haiti to survive and thrive. Hillary Clinton said today, “It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to daunt Haiti and the Haitian people.” This hypocritical statement that blames Haiti’s suffering exclusively on an “act of God” masks the role of U.S. and French imperialism in the region.

In this email message, we have included some background information about Haiti that helps establish the real context:

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated today that as many as 100,000 Haitians may be dead. International media is reporting bodies being piled along streets surrounded by the rubble from thousands of collapsed buildings. Estimates of the economic damage are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Haiti’s large shantytown population was particularly hard hit by the tragedy.

As CNN, ABC and every other major corporate media outlet will be quick to point out, Haiti is the poorest country in the entire Western hemisphere. But not a single word is uttered as to why Haiti is poor. Poverty, unlike earthquakes, is no natural disaster.

The answer lies in more than two centuries of U.S. hostility to the island nation, whose hard-won independence from the French was only the beginning of its struggle for liberation.

In 1804, what had begun as a slave uprising more than a decade earlier culminated in freedom from the grips of French colonialism, making Haiti the first Latin American colony to win its independence and the world’s first Black republic. Prior to the victory of the Haitian people, George Washington and then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had supported France out of fear that Haiti would inspire uprisings among the U.S. slave population. The U.S. slave-owning aristocracy was horrified at Haiti’s newly earned freedom.

U.S. interference became an integral part of Haitian history, culminating in a direct military occupation from 1915 to 1934. Through economic and military intervention, Haiti was subjugated as U.S. capital developed a railroad and acquired plantations. In a gesture of colonial arrogance, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the assistant secretary of the Navy at the time, drafted a constitution for Haiti which, among other things, allowed foreigners to own land. U.S. officials would later find an accommodation with the dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, as Haiti suffered under their brutal repressive policies.

In the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. policy toward Haiti sought the reorganization of the Haitian economy to better serve the interests of foreign capital. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was instrumental in shifting Haitian agriculture away from grain production, paving the way for dependence on food imports. Ruined Haitian farmers flocked to the cities in search of a livelihood, resulting in the swelling of the precarious shantytowns found in Port-au-Prince and other urban centers.

Who has benefited from these policies? U.S. food producers profited from increased exports to Haitian markets. Foreign corporations that had set up shop in Haitian cities benefitted from the super-exploitation of cheap labor flowing from the countryside. But for the people of Haiti, there was only greater misery and destitution.

Washington orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—not once, but twice, in 1991 and 2004. Haiti has been under a U.S.-backed U.N. occupation for nearly six years. Aristide did not earn the animosity of U.S. leaders for his moderate reforms; he earned it when he garnered support among Haiti’s poor, which crystallized into a mass popular movement. Two hundred years on, U.S. officials are still horrified by the prospect of a truly independent Haiti.

The unstable, makeshift dwellings imposed upon Haitians by Washington’s neoliberal policies have now, for many, been turned into graves. Those same policies are to blame for the lack of hospitals, ambulances, fire trucks, rescue equipment, food and medicine. The blow dealt by such a natural disaster to an economy made so fragile from decades of plundering will greatly magnify the suffering of the Haitian people.

Natural disasters are inevitable, but resource allocation and planning can play a decisive role in mitigating their impact and dealing with the aftermath. Haiti and neighboring Cuba, who are no strangers to violent tropical storms, were both hit hard in 2008 by a series of hurricanes—which, unlike earthquakes, are predictable. While more than 800 lives were lost in Haiti, less than 10 people died in Cuba. Unlike Haiti, Cuba had a coordinated evacuation plan and post-hurricane rescue efforts that were centrally planned by the Cuban government. This was only possible because Cuban society is not organized according to the needs of foreign capital, but rather according to the needs of the Cuban people.

In a televised speech earlier today, President Obama has announced that USAID and the Departments of State and Defense will be working to support the rescue and relief efforts in Haiti in the coming days. Ironically, these are the same government entities responsible for the implementation of the economic and military policies that reduced Haiti to ruins even before the earthquake hit.

The ANSWER Coalition has called for a mass national march and rally in Washington, D.C., on March 20 to oppose the wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. We will also demand an end the foreign occupation of Haiti and reparations to Haiti for the vast wealth that has been looted from the country by foreign imperialist countries.

Help build the March 20 March on Washington!

—http://answersf.org/